Interviews, Online Exclusive

Hilda Palafox

Listening to the Earth

Words PLUS MAGAZINE

Photography FABIAN MARTINEZ

Heat seems to rise from the walls before the eye settles on a single figure. In Hilda Palafox’s De Tierra y Susurros at Sean Kelly Gallery, monumental figures bend, kneel, and press their bodies close to the ground, directing attention toward the fragile life held within cracked soil. Mineral reds, ochres, and dense earthen browns bind flesh to terrain, creating a field of heat that moves through the space. Leafless trees stand in suspended stillness while small forms, a butterfly, a plant threading through a fence, a snake concealed within a hollow trunk, mark cycles of division, protection, and renewal. Each element enters with intention, guiding the eye between care, vulnerability, and endurance. Stone bas-reliefs punctuate the installation with carved surfaces shaped through pressure and removal, carrying the weight of geological time. Shortly before the exhibition’s close, we met with Palafox to discuss the physical language of the body, the memory held in soil, and the quiet resilience that anchors this body of work.

PLUS MAGAZINE: Your work moves between public-scale murals and the intimacy of studio painting. When you think about that shift, what from mural making still stays with you when you’re working in the studio?

HILDA PALAFOX: What stayed with me most is the scale and the physicality. Mural work requires your whole body. It becomes almost like choreography. You move constantly just to paint one part of a figure or a landscape. That physical engagement mattered a lot to me.

When I shifted into studio work, I went straight to large canvases because I wanted to preserve that experience. I also carried over the formal language of muralism, the monumentality of the figure and the use of symbolism, but translated through my own perspective and a feminine lens.

P: That physical awareness of the body carries into the exhibition. At the threshold of the space, which sensation do you want to register first?

HP: Warmth. A bodily warmth. The palette is earthy and heated, and that connects directly to the themes of the exhibition, especially climate and land. I wanted the space to feel slightly heated, not in a harsh way, but as a physical presence.

There’s a tension between the warmth of the colors and the care embedded in the work. That contrast felt important to me.

P: Warmth in the work also seems tied to closeness, bodies near the ground, and attention directed downward. In Susurros I, a small plant becomes the emotional center of the painting. How does a detail that fragile come to hold so much weight?

HP: That piece was one of the first works where everything started to make sense for me. I don’t always begin with a fully formed concept. Often, clarity comes through working, spending time in the studio with the same ideas and materials. In Susurros I, the land is dry and cracked, but it isn’t dead. It’s a soil in pain, but it still holds resilience. The figures are there to care for that fragile life. They are listening to the earth. Their bodies are close to the ground, their ears pressed toward it, as if receiving whispers asking for gentleness. The whole exhibition speaks about resilience, of the body and the land, and the ability to begin again.

P: Alongside the monumental figures, there’s a steady presence of small signs, flowers, butterflies, even a snake hidden inside a tree. They feel purposeful, never ornamental.

HP: You are right. Every element is there for a reason. Nothing is included simply because it looks beautiful. For example, the fence appears as one of the few man-made objects in the exhibition. Along with the mirror, it represents containment and division. It connects to ideas around territory, migration, and how land has been divided and exploited. The butterflies represent transformation and hope. There’s also a small plant growing through the fence. I’m interested in how nature always reclaims what we build. Even structures meant to divide are eventually overtaken by life. The snake and the tree are ancient archetypes connected to femininity across many cultures. In that work, two figures guard the tree. It’s a diptych, two canvases forming a single body. The tree is split, and from its cavity, life emerges again. That cavity speaks to fertility and continuity.

P: This interest in life emerging through constraint extends into how you approach landscape. The works return repeatedly to soil and absence, without relying on lush greenery.

HP: I didn’t want to speak about nature through idealized green scenes. I wanted to focus on soil as primordial matter. Soil carries memory. It holds the history of our paths, our presence, our impact.

The trees appear without leaves, in a state similar to winter. They aren’t dead. They’re resting, waiting. That pause felt meaningful. The absence of growth still contains the possibility of renewal.

P: Soil also shapes your use of color, especially in Tierra Sombra Tostada. How does color begin to carry meaning for you in that work?

HP: That painting is named after the pigment itself. It’s the actual name of the color tube I used to mix all the shades in the work. The pigment comes from red minerals, and that mattered to me. In that piece, the body and the land merge completely. You can’t tell where one ends and the other begins. Using a single mineral-based color allowed the painting to exist as one system. The warmth of that red-brown comes directly from the earth, from geological material.

P: The stone bas-reliefs introduce a different relationship to time and touch. What did stone make possible that paint could not?

HP: Stone created a direct connection between material and concept. Cantera stone carries volcanic history. It’s layered with time. When you work with paint, you build an image by adding material. With stone, you reveal an image by removing material. That difference felt important. It echoes how humans take from the land. There’s beauty in that tension. The reliefs function almost like archaeological fragments. They feel like objects uncovered from another time, carrying memory through touch and pressure.

P: Across painting, pigment, and stone, there’s a clear narrative logic at work. Many people have written about your connection to muralism and folk-tale structures, but it feels like something deeper is guiding this body of work.

HP: For a long time, I worked with nature and femininity without fully naming why. Later, through conversations and reading, I encountered ecofeminist thought. It didn’t feel like something new I was adopting. It felt like recognition. Ecofeminism brings together many perspectives, indigenous, political, historical. What resonates with me is the idea that women aren’t inherently closer to the earth, but have learned to pay attention to it through time and experience. That awareness became the foundation for this body of work

P: Looking back, it seems like something that’s been present from the beginning.

HP: I’ve always worked with my hands. Drawing, painting, making things. But I didn’t immediately commit to being an artist. I studied design, and that background still shapes my work. I’m careful with composition. I choose symbols intentionally. I don’t like to overcrowd an image. When I returned to painting seriously, it wasn’t an intellectual decision. It was a feeling. And that’s still how I relate to the work. It’s difficult to put into words. When people ask what I want them to feel in the exhibition, my answer stays simple. I want them to feel warmth. I want something to move inside them. That movement is enough.

Hilda Palafox’s “De Tierra y Susurros” is on view at Sean Kelly, 475 Tenth Avenue, New York, from January 9 to February 21, 2025.